The Burtville deposit is the core asset of the Laverton gold project, which is 100% owned by the company. Fox is currently progressing well in confirming the amount of open-pit resources. The company hopes to confirm enough resources in the 386-square-kilometer Laverton gold deposit to start the first phase of mining.
The resource assessment results announced today have increased the control and inferred resources by 110,000 ounces, and at the same time proves that Burtville South has the potential for resource extension. The updated cut-off grade of resources is 0.6 g/ton:
Burtville Gold Deposit
Low stripping ratio, large tonnage surface mine resources
Burtville is 28 kilometers southeast of Laverton, at the north-northwest end of the Burtville-Karridale mineralization zone. There are multiple large-scale mineralization systems in this mineralization zone, which have the potential to find large-scale gold mines of more than 1 million ounces.
(Figure 1: The distribution of core deposits and resources in the Laverton pre-feasibility study in 2020)
Burtville is 1.8 kilometers north of the Karridale deposit. Carridale has controlled and inferred resources totaling 27.7 million tons, with an average gold grade of 1.33 grams/ton and 1.19 million ounces of gold metal.
(Figure 2: Burtville-Karridale mineralization zone)
Bertville was once mined as a Bertville mining center. Gold was first discovered here in 1897. A total of 6,315 tons of ore were mined from 1899 to 1922, with an average gold grade of 80.6 g/ton. The history is that the large-scale production was in the Karridale/Boomerang mine, which was mined from 1900 to 1905, with a total of 1,628 tons of ore and 4,882 ounces of gold.
In Bertville, the maximum ore mining depth is 40m. Below this depth, excessive groundwater and fresh rocks make small-scale mining unprofitable. The very high-grade component of the Burtville mineralization is the wider shear-type gold deposit.
Since the 1970s, many companies have conducted drilling activities in the Burtville-Karridale mineralization zone. Most of the historical drilling work was carried out by Sons of Gwalia. It also mined a low strip ratio oxide open pit mine in Burtville in the 1990s. The ore was beneficiated at Barnicoat, and 64,000 ounces were recovered at 1.4g/t. Historical reports show that the recovery rate of the Burtville ore from Barnicoat exceeds 93%.
Crescent Gold and later Fox continued drilling and mining at the Bertwell Open-pit Mine in 2012-13. The last mining activity produced 653,000 tons of ore @ 1.12 g/t, 23,635 ounces of gold metal.
Today Fox shares rose 3.95% to A$0.395.
